and the trees are filled with memories
by jlangblues
Summary: "Adam starts kindergarten on a bright and sunny September morning. He's not exactly thrilled about it, and he makes absolutely sure that Finn and Rachel are well aware of this fact." A continuation of 'fill my lungs with sweetness'. AU, based off a prompt from finchel-prompts.


A/N: So, this is just a continuation of 'fill my lungs with sweetness'. **This takes place a year and a half after that fic ended**, and if you haven't already, I'd probably read that fic first before trying to read this one! Once again, all credit goes to** finchel-prompts**, as this is based off the Live-In Child Care prompt. I'd also like to thank **Profitina** for reading over the rough draft of this... seriously, I owe you! And finally, the title of this fic comes, again, from the beautiful song Bloom by The Paper Kites.

Whew. Hope you all enjoy! Reviews are always so appreciated.

-x-

Adam starts kindergarten on a bright and sunny September morning. He's not exactly thrilled about it, and he makes absolutely sure that Finn and Rachel are well aware of this fact.

As they walk to the elementary school, Adam's one hand clutching onto Rachel's and his other arm wrapped around Elephant, he says every couple of seconds that his tummy hurts. Or his head hurts. Or his throat hurts.

"My knee hurts," he mumbles, kicking at a couple pieces of gravel. Rachel glances at Finn over Adam's head, and she makes a quick pouty face at him before looking back down at Adam. She pulls him a little closer to her, squeezes his hand, rubs her thumb soothingly over his.

"How bad, honey?" she asks. He looks up at her, his brown eyes ever wide and his bottom lip stuck dramatically out.

"Bad," Adam says insistently and he even tries to do this little limping thing as if to exaggerate his point. Finn tries his best not to laugh because even though him and Rachel are trying to encourage Adam's imagination, they can't just encourage his outright lying – even though his lies _are_ sort of the funniest thing on earth.

Adam hobbles along for a few more steps, but then he sees a puddle, and he makes a move as if he's about to hop right into it. He bends his knees and everything, like a little frog or something, and he lets out this ribbit noise; but Rachel quickly swoops down and throws her arms around him, picking him up and swinging him over the puddle.

Pretty impressive, considering the fact that she's wearing like, four inch heels and is pregnant. Not super pregnant, though – the bump's not even showing yet and she can still sing and dance and do all that crazy stuff on the stage. And besides, even when she is super pregnant, Finn's pretty sure she'll still find ways to prevent Adam from doing things like jumping in puddles.

He smiles at her as she triumphantly places Adam back down on the ground.

Sometimes he's still kind of shocked that he managed to get such an awesome girl, you know? Like, not many women would be so willing to deal with a rambunctious five year old who's trying to jump in muddy puddles every five seconds.

Rachel flashes him a brilliant smile, runs her hand through her hair as if to say, 'no big deal', and Finn can't do anything, say anything, find any words. So he just smiles back.

Adam apparently forgets that his knee is supposed to be hurting really badly, because he keeps pretending to be a frog for a few more seconds, hopping up and down, his hat sliding on his head a little and his backpack straps falling down his shoulders. Finn has to stop him a couple times to rearrange the hat and pull the shoulder straps up, but he doesn't tell his nephew to calm down or anything because like, he doesn't want to do _anything_ to make Adam sad or start the waterworks or whatever.

(Last night, Adam spent about two hours crying about how he didn't want to go to school. He didn't stop until Finn and Rachel sang all the songs from The Land Before Time like, five times over.)

The closer they get to the school, the closer to Rachel Adam moves. Finn can see the knuckles on Rachel's hand turning white, as Adam clenches her hand as tightly as he possibly can. Rachel doesn't say anything, though; just lets Adam do what he needs to do.

Adam looks up at Finn, and he says, "I hope everyone's nice." Lately, Adam has been on this big kick about everyone needing to be nice, all the time. And he's been especially anxious about everyone at kindergarten being nice, as if he's nervous that all the kids are going to be mean to him or something. Which totally isn't going to happen, and even if it did, Finn would just.

Well. He would take care of the situation.

Finn smiles reassuringly at Adam. "They're all going to be super nice. Kindergarten's going to be just like preschool, except ten times better." Adam looks at him questioningly, not loosening his grip on Rachel's hand.

They start to walk a bit slower as the school comes into sight, Adam dragging his brand new sneakers against the pavement petulantly. Finn doesn't totally blame him for not wanting to go to school. They had the most awesome summer ever, and it makes sense that Adam wouldn't want it to end. In July, Adam and Finn flew to Lima for the week so that Adam could hang out with his nana and papa, and he got completely spoiled the entire time. And then in August, Rachel and Finn took Adam upstate for a while, so that he could hang out with Rachel's dads, who are now referred to as Grandpa One and Two.

When they weren't travelling and visiting family, Adam was going to the park, and visiting Rachel at the theater, and hanging out with Finn and going to baseball games. Like, what kid would be excited about going back to school after all that, you know?

Eventually, the three of them come to a stop outside the school. Children and parents are milling about, and Adam stands between Rachel and Finn, looking up at the big marble door that he'll soon have to enter. After a moment, Finn feels a tug at his pants. He looks down and Adam is staring up at him in an apprehensive sort of manner.

His eyes are kind of squinty and his lips are pursed, and he looks like a miniature Kurt, just like he always does whenever he's super nervous. Finn bends down so that he's kneeling, and places a kiss on Adam's cheek. (And he's so glad that Adam's still at the age where he doesn't get embarrassed about that sort of thing.)

"You okay?" he asks quietly, and Adam stares at him for a second, clearly pondering the question. He looks down at his sneakers and he nods slowly. His Mets hat slides forward a little on his head, and Finn rearranges it once again, as Rachel fusses over Adam's shirt, pulling it down and then smoothing out the sleeves.

"You can do this," Finn says gently, patting Adam reassuringly on the shoulder. "I know you can." Adam holds onto his trusty Elephant tightly, and Finn stands back up.

Adam stares at the door for a couple more seconds, as students and teachers and parents continue to walk by, and then he starts to walk towards it. Rachel flashes a small smile at Finn as they walk with Adam into the school.

-x-

Adam's kindergarten class meets five days a week, but it only goes for about half the day. So it was kind of difficult at first, figuring out how that was going to work into everyone's schedules. It didn't take too much wrangling to figure it out, though, because Rachel doesn't have work on Mondays, and the other days, she doesn't need to be in the theater until two. So, she picks Adam up and they go to lunch or the park or home to play, and then Finn tries his best to get off of work at four, so Adam only has to be with a babysitter for about two or three hours.

It's not the best situation, and Adam certainly doesn't like it, but he's gotten used to having a babysitter ever since Rachel got the lead in this one revival that's currently on Broadway. And most of the time his babysitter is actually this dude named Sam, who's a bartender at the bar that Puck owns. Sam's pretty cool and he likes dinosaurs and Stars Wars and stuff, so Adam kind of idolizes him.

But still. Even if Adam likes Sam and everything, Finn doesn't like him being with a babysitter a lot. It just bothers him, because like, Adam is _his_ and Finn wants to be the one spending time with him and hearing about his day and coloring with him and talking about Legos or whatever. And when Adam was first born, Kurt made this huge deal out of cutting down on his hours at work so that he could make sure that Adam was being raised, you know, properly and with manners. He didn't want Adam to just be a daycare baby.

So, Finn definitely makes sure that he gets off of work at four and the minute he walks into the apartment, he's usually greeted by Adam rushing down the hallway to jump into his arms. Not the worst way to end a work day.

"How was school, bud?" Finn asks, adjusting Adam in his arms as he reaches into his back pocket so that he can grab a couple twenty dollar bills out for Sam. Sam takes it with a smile, knocks fists with Adam, and then heads out the door.

Adam quickly says, "Awesome." Adam's like that. He's a nervous kid and it always takes him a while to get used to new situations, but now that he's been in school for a couple of weeks, he thinks that it's the best thing ever.

He kicks his legs absentmindedly against Finn's waist as his uncle walks into the living room, which is kind of a mild disaster zone – there're like, Legos and shit all over the place, and there's a ton of puzzle pieces scattered all over the floor.

Finn thinks that half the reason Adam likes Sam so much is because Sam, unlike Aunt Santana, doesn't make him pick up his toys.

"What were you up to?" Finn asks, laying on the floor and grabbing a couple of the Lego pieces. He pushes some of them together, creating some sort of house thing, as Adam discusses learning how to count to thirty and reading books about dwarves and princesses or whatever.

"Sounds cool," Finn says, and Adam nods, like, _obviously_ it was cool. He's got this little sassy thing going on sometimes, where he gets all condescending and stuff, but it's so goddamn adorable that Finn can't even attempt to tell him to stop.

Adam jumps up after a second and he quickly runs over to grab his backpack off from the couch – except Adam's not super coordinated or anything, so his running sort of looks like a bull in a china shop kind of thing. He almost runs into the coffee table, but he manages to avert that disaster, and a few seconds later he's shoving a couple pieces of paper into Finn's face.

"What's all this?" Finn asks, as he takes the papers and looks them over. It's basically a bunch of squiggles and some stick figures, and Adam actually put the head on top of the person's body this time, so Finn's pretty sure that's immense improvement in that particular area.

"These look great," Finn says, and he smiles up at Adam. "Seriously. These are awesome, Ad."

Adam smiles all proudly, and he sits down next to Finn, crosses his legs as he points out all the aspects of the drawing. His little hands still have glue and glitter on them from school, and his fingernails are blue, so Finn assumes that they were working hard in art class today. He can't even really pay attention to what Adam's pointing out or whatever, because he's just – he's just looking at Adam.

After a minute, Adam says, "Finny, are you listening?"

Adam does this thing now where he doesn't call Finn his uncle anymore, but he also doesn't call him Dad. He calls him Finny about a hundred percent of the time. Finn definitely didn't encourage this but he hasn't really stopped it, either. Because – you know, whatever makes Adam comfortable.

Finn looks at Adam, who's staring at him all innocently. Finn nods. "Yeah," he says, and Adam smiles gratefully, going back to discussing the very important matter of his art. Apparently he drew a painting of him and Elephant, on stage and dancing and singing. And there are a couple of other stick figures drawn haphazardly around the paper, and Adam announces,

"Those are Papa, and Nana, and One and Two, and Aunt San… and you, and Mama." Adam looks up at Finn, smiles proudly. Finn can tell immediately which stick figure is Rachel, because it has long, carefully drawn brown lines of hair, and a big smiling mouth, and there's glitter stuck all over her 'outfit'.

"Anyone else on there?" Finn asks, and Adam stares at the picture for a moment, before he points to the top of the page. Finn was expecting that, because whenever Adam draws Kurt into a picture, he always draws him at the top.

"Daddy," Adam says, and he taps his finger against the top of the paper once more. "That one is Daddy Kurt." He smiles at Finn widely and Finn forces a smile back, just like he always does at the mention of his brother.

Adam picks the pictures up and he walks off into the kitchen, presumably so that he can stick his artwork up on the fridge so that Rachel will see it when she gets home. Finn looks back at the Legos that are in front of him, stares at the buildings that Sam and Adam were working on.

He slowly pushes a few of the buildings together, starts to work on a fence to go around them. Adam comes back a couple of minutes later, plops down next to Finn. He stares at his uncle as he works on the buildings and then quietly joins in as well.

It's been almost two years since Kurt's death. The reality of the situation, the gravity of the situation… sometimes, it still takes Finn's breath away.

After a while, Adam gets bored of playing with the Legos, and so Finn turns on the television, puts in The Lion King. Adam lies on the couch beside him, and they watch the movie for a half hour or so before Finn shuts it off so that they can get ready for dinner. Rachel always makes dinner for them and then just stores it in the fridge so that all Finn has to do is put it in the oven or something, heat it up.

He couldn't do this without her – and not just the cooking thing, because Finn's a bad cook but he's not _that_ shitty.

He doesn't think he could raise Adam without her. Finn thinks that maybe if it was just him raising Adam, he would get so – so _lost_ in the memories of Kurt, so lost in his nervousness that he's fucking things up, that he's not raising Adam exactly the way that Kurt would want him to be raised, that he wouldn't be able to actually successfully raise Adam into a normal and happy guy.

Rachel doesn't let him get lost. And even though for some reason this random day is harder than others, even though Finn wants to just sit in his room and think about Kurt, think about his brother, he calls Rachel and talks to her quietly while Adam is eating his dinner, and everything stays steady. Everything remains okay.

"I'll be home soon," Rachel says, breathless, when she calls again during intermission. "I'll be home right after the show ends."

Finn doesn't respond to that. Instead, he says, "I love you."

And Rachel says, "I love you, too."

-x-

Rachel was raised as an only child. She doesn't really understand what it means to lose a brother, to lose a sibling. And even though Finn knows that he can talk to her about anything – literally anything, like one time they spent an hour talking about whether Sean Connery or Daniel Craig makes a better James Bond, and even though Rachel doesn't even really like James Bond, she still watched the movies with him so that she could make her own determination – he doesn't really like talking about Kurt with anyone besides sometimes his mom or Burt. It's just, it's so raw and sensitive, and Finn doesn't really like to dwell on things that he absolutely can't change. And he can't change the fact that Kurt's dead, no matter how much he wants to.

But sometimes, when the feelings are bottled up so tight inside him that he feels like he either has to talk about them or risk exploding into a million little pieces, he'll talk to Rachel about his brother. Usually it's random, offhand comments, like about whether Kurt would've liked a certain song, or what Kurt would think about Adam's outfit of the day. But once in a while, Finn needs to have like, a legit conversation about his brother. He needs to sit with Rachel and just talk out his feelings and stuff.

Rachel never minds. She _loves_ talking about feelings, whether they're hers, or Finn's, or Adam's, or anyone's, really. When she and Finn first stated dating, she would always talk to him about how shitty her childhood was growing up, how she didn't have a lot of friends and how when she moved to the city, she was convinced that her life would suddenly become magical and perfect.

She's still kind of bitter, sometimes, about the fact that it took her so long to get her break on Broadway. But there's some sort of saying or whatever, about the tortoise winning the race? Rachel was the understudy for Maria for about two months before taking over, and she's been in the role for a year now, getting seriously awesome reviews. Finn thinks that maybe everything worked out for the best, even though he'd never say that to Rach.

Anyway. Rachel never minds when Finn wants to talk about Kurt. She'll get a couple glasses of cold water once Adam is all tucked away in bed, and she'll set them on Finn's nightstand, and then they'll just lie next to each other in bed, and sort of – well, talk out Finn's feelings.

The lights are all off, and Finn can hear Rachel's hand rustling against the blankets, searching for his. He stretches his arm out a little, and a second later he can feel her fingers intertwining with his, her skin soft against his.

"Today was a long day," she says, yawning, and Finn blinks a couple of times, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He can make out Rachel's eyes eventually, her long brown hair, her nose as it wrinkles up when she lets out another yawn.

"Too long," Finn says, agreeing, shifting his body so that it's closer to hers. "Seriously like, the minute I got to work I just wanted to come home and go to sleep."

Rachel curls up closer to him, so that her head is laying on his pillow as well, one of her legs lazily sliding over both of his. "You should've," she says, and he can feel her warm breath washing over his face. "You work too hard, honey."

"Says the woman who is the lead in a Broadway play, pregnant, and still manages to do every single thing that Adam asks her to," Finn says, and Rachel giggles, bites her lower lip. Probably subconsciously, she touches a hand to her stomach.

The pregnancy was an accident. A happy one, though, after Rachel took a couple of days to digest the information.

"I can't help myself," she says lightly, defending her busy schedule as she always does. "Adam needs me."

(Rachel's like that, Finn's learned. She's loyal – to herself, to her dreams, to Finn, and to Adam. When she decides that something or someone is important to her, it's like she adds it on to her little list of things that she needs to always be devoted to.)

Rachel brushes her lips chastely against Finn's. "But you should've come home if you needed to," she says, and she runs her fingertips lightly through his hair. "I'm sure Adam would've loved if you'd picked him up from school."

Finn shrugs, tilts his head more into Rachel's hand as she lightly scratches at his scalp. It feels good and like, Rachel _likes_ taking care of him like this. She always says so, and Finn likes taking care of her when she needs it, too. They're a team, you know?

He sighs as Rachel pushes her body even closer to his, so that they're lying like some sort of pretzel or something. She presses another kiss against his cheek, and she says,

"Was today a bad day, honey?"

He nods, and she waits patiently for him to go on, as her fingernails continuing scratching against his head. He sighs and then breathes in deeply; she smells like lavender and vanilla, as always, and he brushes his nose gently against her forehead for just a second.

"I don't know," Finn says finally, and he wraps an arm around Rachel's waist, rolls them so that she's lying directly on top of him. But she can't stay on her stomach, so she situates herself between his legs, sitting on her knees. She leans forward and lays her arms on his lower stomach, propping her chin up in her hands so that she can stare him straight in the eyes. Her hair's piled on top of her head in a messy bun and she's wearing a little nightgown that's all purple and flowery; she's so beautiful. _So_ beautiful.

Finn sighs, and he places his hands on top of Rachel's nightgown, pulls at it so that the material's resting above her bottom, exposing her legs. He slides his hands over her ass, then curves his fingertips against her upper thighs, runs his thumbs back and forth against the lacy hem of her panties.

Rachel doesn't move though, doesn't say anything, and Finn tightens his grip on her legs. He just. He likes to feel her, you know? It kind of comforts him.

"I know we're doing right by Adam," Finn says finally. "I know that. And I know that Kurt would be – he'd be so happy about how he's turning out. But it's just." He shakes his head and he can't look up at Rachel anymore. He stares up at the ceiling, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before letting it out slowly.

"I don't know, Rach. I just wish that things were different, you know?"

Rachel doesn't respond, and Finn continues, "And every time Adam draws another picture of Kurt as a stick figure angel or whatever…" he trails off, swallows thickly. He opens his eyes and he turns his head to the side, because he doesn't think he could handle looking into Rachel's eyes at this moment. "He doesn't remember him."

"What do you mean?" Rachel asks.

"Adam," Finn says quietly, his fingertips pressing into her skin. "He doesn't – you know, Kurt's just like, this idea to him now. He knows that Kurt's 'daddy' but. He doesn't remember him. All he knows about Kurt is from pictures and videos." He closes his eyes and he takes another deep breath that shudders out of him in a soft and broken sob.

Some days are easier than others. Some weeks, some months, he doesn't even cry or really get upset at all. But then it just hits him – all of these moments he's having with Adam, all the baseball games, scraped knees, art projects, and vacations, those are moments that Kurt's supposed to be having.

And it just. It fucking _sucks_.

Rachel leans forward, presses a kiss against the hollow of his throat. Finn looks at her and he sits up so that she doesn't have to be sitting on her knees anymore – because hello, she's pregnant and that can't really be comfortable, even if the little thing inside her is only about the size of a couple of grapes right now.

Rachel sits back down on her bottom and she smiles at him, cups his cheeks with her hands and kisses him soundly, her lips smacking against his. He pulls her onto his lap and holds her snugly to him, and she pulls away from him after a moment, her lips still close to his.

"You're doing fine, Finn," she says, and he can feel her breath inside his mouth, can feel her pressing against his body, can feel her everywhere.

"I know," he says. "I know. But I just – I wish things were different," Finn says, shrugging because he doesn't know what else he can do.

"But they're not," Rachel says, her hands still cupped around his face. "And I think, all things considered, you are the absolute best parent that Adam could have."

The word parent literally stabs at Finn, and honestly – he knows that's what he is. He knows that's how people look at him now, like he's Adam's parent. And he loves that, he loves that Adam's loved and taken care of and everything, but some days he just feels guilty, like a horrible brother, for – for _filling_ that primary spot in Adam's heart, that spot that should _always_ belong to a dad. That spot that should solely belong to Kurt; that spot that shouldn't be shared.

"Adam's so lucky," Rachel whispers, as she peppers little kisses all over Finn's face. "He has two dads who love him. Not many people can say that." She thinks for a minute, before she lets out a playful giggle and says, "Well. That's not quite true, but, you know what I'm saying."

Finn tilts his head down towards hers, so that he can get another kiss. "I don't know how you're so awesome all the time," he says, and Rachel replies,

"I could ask the same thing of you."

And then Finn slips his hands underneath Rachel's panties and he slowly eases them off from her hips and she reaches her hand down between their bodies, presses her hand against the front of his boxers and –

Yeah, that's pretty much the end of the serious talk for that night.

-x-

There's this one ice cream place near their apartment that sells pumpkin flavored ice cream during the autumn months. And even though Adam doesn't remember everything (seriously, the kid barely remembers what he has for breakfast), he does remember from last year that he loves that ice cream. So the last week in September, when he and Finn are out doing some random errands around the city on an early Saturday morning, he asks if they can go get an ice cream cone after they eat lunch.

Rachel tries to keep Adam's diet under control and like… boring, but Finn can't really say no when Adam asks him for things like ice cream. So after they drop off the dry cleaning and go to the library to return some books, they swing by the ice cream shop.

Adam asks for a small pumpkin cone with chocolate sprinkles, please, and Finn orders the same but with a large cone instead. And then they sit at a little table by the window and people watch as they eat their ice cream cones.

"Good choice, Addy," Finn says, biting into the ice cream cone. Adam doesn't say anything right away, because he's clearly distracted by the orange drips that are making their way down his cone, and he quickly licks at them, trying to stop them before they reach the end of the cone.

Adam swings his legs back and forth as he chomps on his little ice cream cone, and eventually, the drips get to be too much for him; Finn goes up to the counter and he asks for a bowl, so that he can just sort of stick what's left of Adam's cone inside there. Finn breaks up the cone with his hands (they're clean, okay?) so that it's just sort of mashed in with the ice cream, and Adam happily digs in with a plastic spoon.

"I love ice cream," Adam says, his eyes lighting up as he licks his spoon. "And pumpkins." He shovels another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth and swallows quickly, smiling brightly at Finn. Finn just smiles back, his own ice cream cone long gone. Leaning back in his chair, he glances out the window for a second before looking at Adam.

He looks like such a little man, you know? Like he's only five but he's already got his own personality and stuff, and he's got such an attitude sometimes, like he thinks that he's a teenager or something. And he only likes to wear clothes now that look like they could be miniature versions of Finn's. So today he's wearing this little plaid shirt (buttoned up completely, though, at Rachel's insistence) and jeans, with black and white Puma sneakers. Fucking adorable.

"What're you gonna be for Halloween?" Finn asks, as Adam finishes up the last of his ice cream. Adam thinks about the question seriously, his face scrunching up pensively.

"Batman?" Adam asks. "No. No, Spiderman!" He points his wrists at Finn and makes little hissing noises, clearly implying that he's attacking him with that spiderweb junk. Finn pretends that his hands are all tied up and tangled together, and Adam giggles. "You're so silly, Finny," he says, and Finn laughs, stands up out of the chair.

"Probably. Ready to get going?"

Adam nods and slides off from his chair, slipping his hand inside Finn's. They walk out of the ice cream parlor and Adam kicks at the stray, dead leaves that are littering the pavement and when he finds a particularly crunchy one, he makes sure to hop on it at least five times.

"What are you going to be?" Adam asks distractedly, as he bends down and grabs a crumbly leaf off from the pavement. He crunches it between his fingers delightedly, looks up at Finn and lets out a little wolf's howl – his new go to animal noise for whenever he's so excited about something that he can't even contain himself.

Finn lets out a quiet wolf's howl back, because he has to, and then says, "I don't know. Mama wants to go as a pair of something."

Adam started referring to Rachel as that all on his own, probably when he was about four and a half years old. They never bothered to correct him – like, Adam's aware that Rachel's technically his aunt and stuff, but he's also aware that Rachel's the closest thing to a mother that he'll ever have. So. Mama she is.

And it's appropriate that Adam calls her Mama because Rachel's kind of the most protective mama bear on the face of the planet, as far as Finn's concerned.

"Like sneakers?" Adam asks.

"Kind of," Finn says delicately, and then adds, "but she was thinking a pair... like, Batman and Robin? Or Spiderman and Mary-Jane?"

He's pretty boss at explaining things in five year old terms now.

Adam nods like he totally gets what Finn is saying, and he says helpfully, "You should go as Eeyore and Tigger. I love Eeyore. He looks like Elephant."

You know, Eeyore and Tigger are friends, which kind of makes them a pair, which basically means that Adam understood what Finn was trying to say. So, there's no point in correcting him, and Adam looks so damn proud of himself that Finn couldn't even possibly think of doing that.

Finn ruffles Adam's hair with his hand. "You'll have to tell Mama your idea when we visit her tonight."

Adam's looks up at Finn, his eyes lighting up dramatically. "We're going to the stage?" he asks, and by stage he means theater, because he's five and he can't really remember the name of Rachel's workplace or whatever; he knows that she performs on a stage every night and that's good enough for him.

Finn nods, and Adam immediately starts bouncing up and down and talking excitedly because he loves going to the theater and seeing Rachel there all dressed up. Even though Adam's getting super tall (because though people never believe Finn when he tells them, Kurt actually _was_ pretty tall), Finn picks him up to carry him.

"Finny," Adam says, groaning slightly because he's a big kid now and he doesn't want his uncle carrying him all over the place. But Finn doesn't care because Adam has pumpkin ice cream dried on his chin and his brown eyes are wide and his breath is hot against Finn's cheek. And sometimes, Finn feels like he loves Adam more than anything in the entire world.

-x-

Rachel's pregnancy wasn't really planned – and when Finn says 'not really', what he actually means is 'not at all'. It was kind of a huge shock and for a couple days after they found out, things were tense between the two of them. It's not like they'd never talked about having kids, but they had wanted to wait until Rachel was like, at least thirty, and had established her career a bit more. And they'd also planned on being married and Rachel having a Tony on the mantle, and like, neither of those things have happened.

But then at the beginning of August, Rachel started feeling all sick and tired, and she went to the doctor's on a whim because she thought maybe she had the flu or something. But then she came home that night and her face was all pale, and. Well. She didn't have the flu. She was pregnant.

She and Finn just sat in the middle of their bed that night; they didn't really talk a lot. Rachel mostly cried, and in between sobs she said she wasn't sorry that she was pregnant, because she loves him, and she loves Adam, but she said that she wasn't ready to have a baby, she wasn't ready to stop working – she wasn't ready for _any_ of it.

She had all this mascara running down her cheeks, and every so often, she would push her hands against her stomach as if she was still in disbelief. She didn't even talk to Finn for like, two days; she just went to work, took care of Adam, and went about her business. But after the end of the second day, she turned to Finn after Adam had gone to bed, and she said that she was okay. That she was ready to accept this responsibility and that she was ready to have this baby.

"But – your work," Finn had said weakly, and Rachel had just shaken her head, and said,

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

It's October now, and Rachel's three months pregnant, but they still haven't really talked about that too much – what Rachel's going to do about work, once the baby comes. Finn knows his wife, and he knows that Rachel isn't going to want the leave the baby with a nanny, no matter how much she loves the stage. Rachel barely feels comfortable leaving Adam with Sam, or with one of their friends. The idea of leaving her newborn child with someone is probably freaking the hell out of her.

But Rachel doesn't want to talk about it yet, doesn't want to think about it yet, and she still has a month before she has to leave the show she's currently with. So, Finn just figures that they'll probably talk once her schedule calms down a bit. And that's fine. They'll figure this out, just like they've figured out every other problem that's faced them. They always do.

Even if Rachel wasn't exactly thrilled about the pregnancy at first, Adam was absolutely ecstatic when he found out. And he still is. Practically every day he brings up the subject.

"Are you going to buy the baby an Elephant?" he asks Finn. It's seven-thirty on a Tuesday evening, and Adam should really be ready to fall asleep, but he's all wound up because Finn and him spent a lot of the afternoon playing board games, and Adam's super competitive, so it kind of takes him a long time to wind back down.

Finn's lying on his bed with him, and he's supposed to be reading Adam his goodnight story, but like, Adam wanted to talk and stuff, and is Finn really supposed to say no to that? What if Adam had something monumentally important to say?

Such as questioning whether the baby would want an elephant?

Finn can't let Adam go to sleep worrying about those types of things, obviously.

"Do you want me to?" he asks, looking over at his nephew. Elephant's resting next to Adam. He looks good, considering that for the past few years he's been trucking around the entire city with a little kid. His fabric's lost a lot of its softness and shininess – he's a little brittle now, after so many times in the wash, and the stuffing in his trunk is all mashed and separated, so he looks like his nose has been broken a few times.

But all things considered, he's held up well in his old age.

And Adam hold onto him tightly, looking at Finn anxiously.

"You could buy him a parrot," Adam says, avoiding the questions, like five years old tend to do when they're all uncomfortable. "Or you could buy her a sheep."

"A sheep?" Finn asks. "That seems kind of boring, compared to Elephant," he adds, tapping the animal on the tummy. Adam giggles, hugging Elephant closer to him.

"That's because Elephant's awesome," he says, rolling over onto his side and yawning a bit, hiding it behind his hand quickly. He looks at Finn guiltily, and he says, "I'm not tired, Finny."

Finn holds his hands up defensively. "Never said you were, bud." He slides down a little lower on the bed, though, so that he's lying next to Adam. Sometimes if kids see you doing something, they want to copy you. It's totally awesome and like, along with getting Adam to wear normal clothes, it also helps in getting him to eat his vegetables and go to sleep at night.

Finn doesn't have to sleep in his bedroom with him anymore, but sometimes Adam takes the initiative to go to sleep if he thinks that Finn is sleepy too. Yeah, it's sort of tricking him, but like, it's tricking for a good cause, so Finn thinks that's okay.

Adam lays his head on Finn's shoulder and he yawns again, smacking his lips together.

"If the baby _really_ wanted Elephant, you could buy it one," Adam decides sleepily. "Okay, Finny?"

His eyelids slowly flutter shut, his grip on Elephant loosening just a little. He has the longest eyelashes Finn has ever seen, and his skin's all soft and porcelain like, like Kurt's was.

Finn brushes a kiss against the top of his head. "The baby won't want Elephant, Ad. But that's really cool of you."

Adam looks up at him and blinks a couple times, his eyes dazed as sleep overcomes him. But he nods and he gives Finn this small smile and says, "Yeah, I know," because modesty isn't exactly one of his strongest points, even though Finn's been trying to work on that. Rachel encourages it though, because she's absolutely convinced that Adam is going to be a star one day.

(Finn knows it sounds totally crazy, but Adam is like, this kind of cool mix between Kurt and Rachel, somehow. It's pretty awesome.)

Sometimes when Finn's in Adam's room and he looks around it, he's kind of shocked at how far they've come in the past couple of years. Around two years ago at this time, Adam was sobbing every night, crying about missing his daddy and Elephant being scared and lonely. And now, Adam loves the city. He loves his room; it's painted a light blue, and there are glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling in all these swirling patterns. He hasn't cried about Kurt in a very long time.

The pictures of Kurt are all still up around the room, of course. Not one has been taken down. Sometimes when Adam's in his room by himself, and Finn goes in to check on him, he'll see Adam talking to the pictures – you know, standard little kid stuff like, "Hi, Daddy, I had a great day today. How was your day? Did you like the color blue? It's my favorite color."

Except lately, for the past couple of months or so, Adam doesn't just call Kurt 'Daddy'. He usually calls him 'Daddy Kurt', like he's dissociating from him or something. And whenever Finn hears that, he always tries to mention Kurt five thousand times at dinner. 'Daddy liked this type of food' or 'Daddy would've laughed at that joke'. Stupid shit like that. It makes Finn feel better.

Adam just smiles at him now, though, like Finn's talking about some man on the television. Someone he's heard of, someone he's aware of, but someone he doesn't _really_ know.

Finn has to accept that, though, as horrible and shitty as that is. He can't force Adam to remember Kurt. No matter how hard, how _desperately_ hard, he tries.

-x-

So, Adam's the turkey in the Thanksgiving play his kindergarten class puts on. And initially, Rachel isn't all that happy about that development, because she doesn't want Adam playing a piece of meat or whatever – especially when she's not even serving turkey at their Thanksgiving meal. But when she realized that the turkey was basically the biggest part that a kid could play, and that the whole play was centered around Adam (the turkey) being shared between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, she jumped on board enthusiastically.

Adam wasn't necessarily so enthusiastic about the entire thing. He's still pretty shy in front of people he doesn't know too well. But Rachel has this way of getting Adam to be enthusiastic about the things she's enthusiastic about, so. Adam seems relatively pumped up about the play.

Anyway, for Rachel, jumping on board essentially meant cajoling Santana to help make Adam's turkey costume, and enlisting Sam's help in making sure that Adam could attend all the little after school play rehearsals or whatever. Finn would've helped with the costume but he's not that good with arts and crafts stuff – he and Adam tried making a macaroni frame for Rachel's birthday last year and the entire thing fell apart the minute they handed it to her. And he doesn't mind taking Adam to after school things, but he's usually not out of work in time. Obviously Rachel would've helped but it was her last couple of weeks at work and she wasn't really feeling all that good – late onset morning sickness. Anyway, their friends helped them out, and Adam's turkey costume is probably the best one Finn has ever seen.

It's just this huge stuffed thing, and Adam has to literally be picked up and placed inside it, and then the straps are all tied around his shoulders. He can barely walk in it; he practices the night before the play, and he just waddles around the living room, the turkey's tail shaking with every step he takes. It's fucking adorable as hell, and Rachel records the whole thing on her phone so she can send it out to the grandparents.

The play's put on during the regular kindergarten time, so Finn calls out of work and he calls for a taxi so that he and Rachel don't have to walk or wait for anything.

"Taking care of your baby's mama?" Rachel asks, giggling, as Finn offers her his arm as they walk down the hallway of their apartment building. Finn glances over at her, smiles. She's like four and a half months pregnant and her bump is finally starting to show; just this tiny little thing that's barely visible underneath her shirts.

But he knows it's there, and he knows what's in there. He leans down, drops a kiss on the top of Rachel's head.

"Have to," Finn says, as Rachel holds onto his arm as they walk out the front door of the building. It's drizzling outside, just a light mist, but he reaches with his one arm behind Rachel so that he can pull the hood of her jacket up over her head.

She smiles up at him gratefully. "Thanks, honey." She sounds tired and Finn knows that she hasn't been sleeping all that well. Ever since she left the show, it's almost like she doesn't know what to do with herself. She bustles around the city during the day and then stays up super late at night, trying out all these different recipes or buying new clothes online for either Adam or the baby. It's like Rachel doesn't know how to relax or something.

And like, Finn always knew that his girlfriend had kind of a wound up personality, but he thought that might mellow out once she got pregnant. But pretty much the exact opposite is happening.

Rachel taps her feet lightly against the floor of the cab, her knees jostling, and she tucks loose strands of hair behind her ears every couple of seconds. And she's running her hands over her legs too, like she's nervous or something. After a minute, Finn can't take it anymore, and he reaches over, grabs onto one of her hands with his.

"Are you okay?" he asks quietly, because the cab driver's looking nosey. Finn looks in the rearview mirror and sort of gives the guy a warning glance, like, mind your own business. The cab driver rolls his eyes, cracks his gum loudly, and stares back out the windshield.

"I'm just so nervous about Adam," Rachel whispers back. She tightens her grip on Finn's hand for just a second before pulling away, clasping her own hands together and placing them in her lap. She licks her bottom lip anxiously then says, "He seemed so afraid when he went into school today, and you know how anxious he gets sometimes."

She pulls her bright red pea coat tighter around her, forcing it to close over her belly. Finn smiles despite himself then snaps out of it because he should be focusing on his nephew, _not_ his girlfriend's cute pregnant body.

Rachel swats him on the arm. "Finn," she says pleadingly. Finn shakes his head, snapping himself out of his reverie, and he looks back up into her eyes. He smiles guiltily, then says,

"Look, I practiced with Adam like, twenty times last night. And yeah, he's got some anxiety once in a while, but he's done a lot better lately. Remember?" he prods, placing a reassuring hand on her thigh. "You think he's going to be a star?"

Rachel nods, conceding this point, her eyes wide and her brow furrowed. She's so unbelievably overdramatic sometimes, but it's kind of one of those things that probably bothers other people, but just endears her even more to Finn.

(He thinks that's sort of what a relationship is supposed to be, you know? Like, you love the parts of that person that everyone else might find kind of annoying? Rachel, for example, thinks that Finn's obsession with grilled cheese sandwiches is adorable.)

"He is going to be a star," Rachel says stubbornly, "but I just know how nervous he gets, and there are going to be so many parents and family members there…" she trails off, biting her bottom lower lip. She looks at Finn and she smiles a little ashamedly, reaching down to grab her purse – an abnormally large one that usually she just takes to the beach or whatever.

Finn raises his eyebrows as Rachel slowly pulls out Elephant from the purse.

Finn's jaw drops and he points at her accusingly, and yeah, maybe he talks a little loudly this time, but come _on_. "You said no more Elephant at public events!" he says, jabbing his finger into the fabric of the old stuffed toy.

Rachel hangs her head in shame, and she giggles despite herself. "I can't help it. I know that if Adam gets nervous, just the sight of Elephant will make him feel ten times better," she says, familiarly stroking the fabric of Elephant's ears.

"But you said it was like taking a – a binky away from a baby," Finn says, becoming flustered because just the other week, Rachel and him had this huge, _massive_ talk about not letting Adam take Elephant out in public anymore, and only allowing Adam to sleep with him at night. "You said you do it once and that's it, absolutely no going back."

Finn thought that was evil of them at the time, to just take away Elephant's outdoor privileges without so much as a _warning_ to Adam, but Rachel had all of these printed out statistics and graphs and shit. So, by the end of the night, the decision had been made that there was to be no more of Adam taking Elephant on the subway, or to kindergarten, or anywhere outside the apartment.

And now, here Rachel is - carrying the stuffed animal like it's a form of contraband, right into Adam's fall play.

Traitor.

"I can_not_ believe you," Finn says, a tone of amazement in his voice. Rachel giggles again, presses her forehead against his shoulder briefly before pulling away. She tries to stop giggling, holds her hands over her mouth and everything, but her shoulders are still shaking.

"You're going to be one of those people, aren't you?" Finn asks, and Rachel looks at him, tears in her eyes.

"What people?" she asks breathlessly, wiping her hands underneath her eyes. She pulls her compact mirror out of her purse, checking for any stray marks of mascara or whatever, and Finn continues,

"Like one of those stage-y, dance moms, like on that show we watch." He says 'we' but in reality he means 'that one you watch and that one I ignore while I check sports scores on my iPad'.

"Absolutely not," Rachel says, trying her very best to sound offended, placing her hand over her heart. "Finn, I am just trying to make sure that Adam performs to the absolute best of his abilities, and if that means that Elephant has to make a quick intermission appearance…" she trails off, shrugs at him and gives him this knowing look. "You understand."

"There's no intermission!" Finn exclaims loudly. The cab driver looks up at him through the rearview mirror, and Finn just waves him off, looking back at his girlfriend. "This is a play full of five year olds, Rach. Adam's one line is, 'Let's eat' and he doesn't even say it very loudly!"

Rachel looks at him reproachfully, before turning back to her mirror, touching up her lipstick. "We practiced last night before bed. Trust me. He's going to say it loudly." She smacks her lips together and then shuts the compact mirror, tossing it back into her purse. "Besides, if I start to get the impression that he won't be saying it quite as loudly as I want him to, well."

She pats Elephant on the head.

"You're crazy," Finn says, in an incredulous tone.

"Perhaps," Rachel concedes, "but if performing exceptionally well with the help of Elephant means that Adam gets the lead in the Christmas pageant, so be it."

Finn looks at her, confused. "You said you didn't want Adam participating in the Christmas pageant this year."

And she totally did, because even though they've decided to raise Adam in a nondenominational way or whatever, Rachel still doesn't want him doing like, _super_ Christmas-y things. A Christmas pageant seems like the exact definition of that.

"I'm not going to deny him a chance to shine," Rachel says defiantly. And Finn can't even help himself, he just bursts out laughing.

A half hour later, Adam is waddling out onto the stage that was set up in the classroom. Finn, Rachel, and Santana are sitting in the very front row. And when Adam starts to look nervous, turning pale and looking like he's about to throw up his Cheerios, Rachel whips out Elephant faster than Finn has seen her move in weeks.

She says quietly but confidently, "_Addy_!" and she waves Elephant a little bit in front of her, smiles brightly.

Adam quickly looks over to her, his bottom lip quivering, and Santana has to seriously grab onto Finn's pant leg so he doesn't try to jump onto the stage and carry Adam off, comfort him right then and there.

But then, when Adam sees Elephant, he lets out this smile and laugh. The color starts to return to his porcelain cheeks a bit, and he looks out into the crowd. He waddles a little more and shakes his tail and then he says confidently,

"Let's eat!"

Rachel immediately leaps to her feet to give Adam a standing ovation, and Finn and Santana have to collectively pull at her skirt to get her to sit down because the play isn't even _over_ yet.

She sits down sheepishly, runs a hand through her hair, and as if to explain the situation, she says to the other parents, "That's my son."

Finn looks her at when she says that, and Rachel doesn't say anything else, just smiles at him in this dazed sort of fashion. Because she's never said those actual words before in public and in front of people they don't really know. She looks at Finn a bit nervously, almost as if she's waiting for him to say something – but he doesn't.

He feels like Rachel and Adam just crossed some sort of bridge that can't be uncrossed.

Rachel is Adam's mom. And Adam is Rachel's son, and the baby Rachel's carrying is going to be Adam's brother. It's not complicated; it doesn't have to be a big dramatic scene. It just is what it is. Adam's called her mom for the past year or so now, and it makes sense that Rachel would view him as her son.

It makes _sense_.

Finn swallows tightly and Santana glances over at him, gives him a small, supportive smile. He just stares at her for a moment before looking back at the front of the stage. Adam's sitting there and the Pilgrims and Native Americans are discussing how they're going to eat him, and Finn's pretty sure the kids are going off book there, but all he can think about is this one conversation he had with Kurt about how Adam was never going to have a mom and how that always made him feel kind of depressed.

Rachel takes Finn's hand and he intertwines their fingers, and he lets out a wolf whistle when Adam takes his final bow.

-x-

Adam decides that he wants to buy Rachel a kitten for her twenty-sixth birthday. Finn's not so sure if that's a great idea, because Rachel's pregnant and everything, so she already has enough stuff to worry about; but Adam insists, and Finn's still pretty shitty at saying no to him.

So he bundles Adam up in his winter coat, scarf, and mittens, and these black motorcycle boots that Puck bought him for his fifth birthday, and they head off to this one pet store that Tina told him about.

"I hate snow," Adam mumbles, dragging his feet through the sludgy mess that covers the sidewalks. Snowflakes are falling lightly and they cling to his wool hat. Every so often he sticks his tongue out to try to grab a few flakes on his tongue and like, he _says_ that he hates the snow, but Finn thinks that's mostly just an act now.

"At least it's not too cold out," Finn says, and he reaches over, pulls Adam's hat down a little lower on his ears, then grabs onto his nephew's hand. "And it's not too much farther."

Adam doesn't say anything, and Finn knows that he's probably wishing that they'd just taken a cab or the subway or something. But the snow won't kill him, and Finn thinks it's important for Adam to realize that just because he doesn't like the snow doesn't mean that he can avoid it forever.

Finn hates doing the dick parent thing but like. It's necessary sometimes. Adam can't just hibernate through the winter months, okay?

"Can we get hot chocolate?" Adam asks, and he runs his hand underneath his nose. "Mama made it with mellows the other day and it was so good!" Mellows is, of course, Adam's word for marshmallows. And Adam's right on that front, because Rachel's boss at making hot chocolate – even though it (and the marshmallows) are vegan.

"Why don't we just wait until we're home, and then Mama can make us some?" Finn suggests. Adam ponders this for a moment and then nods, wiping his hand underneath his nose again. He starts sighing and dragging his feet some more, and he lets out a little clucking noise, sort of like a rooster or something.

"Almost there, bud," Finn says again. Adam nods wearily, like he's just completed a fifty-k race, and not a four block walk.

When they finally get into the pet store, Adam hops up and down for a couple minutes, trying to warm up. He waves his arms by his sides, and Finn grabs him in a bear hug, swings him up in the air for a second and places a loud kiss on the side of his face.

"Finny," Adam laughs, and Finn tickles him for a second before placing him back down on the ground. Adam smiles widely up at him, his brown eyes shining, snowflakes still clinging to his eyelashes.

The minute Adam's placed on the ground, he rushes over to the little place where the kittens are being held. They're rescue cats, which Finn knows Rachel will love, and there're actually some really fucking cute ones to choose from. They're all just sort of piled on top of one another, sleeping, and Adam breathlessly reaches a hand out to touch them gently.

"Careful, bud," Finn says, kneeling down beside Adam to make sure everything goes smoothly. Because he's kind of seen way too many episodes of shows on Animal Planet to trust little kids near baby animals.

"I am," Adam insists quietly, trying not to disturb the kittens. He gently strokes the bellies of a couple of the kittens, and they all yawn sleepily, lazily nipping at his fingers. Adam looks indignantly at Finn, saying, "They bit me!"

"Don't bother them, then," Finn says, and Adam thinks this advice over for a second before going back to touching the kittens.

"They're cute. Right, Finny?" Adam asks, as he pets the kittens some more.

"Yeah," Finn says, looking over the kittens and then up at the sales person, who's smiling brightly at them. Finn glances over at Adam, who now actually has a kitten in his lap. Adam giggles as the little tabby cat nestles up to him, licks his hand.

"His tongue's scratchy," Adam says, mesmerized. He looks up at Finn, then back at the kitten. "Mama would love him."

The sales person looks at Finn and mouths 'girl'. Finn quickly looks over at Adam and he says,

"Addy, I think that's one actually a girl kitty."

Adam looks momentarily disturbed by this thought. "A _girl_?" he asks, because at this point in his young life, he's reached the stage where he thinks that every single girl besides possibly his mama and Aunt Santana has an indeterminable amount of cooties.

"Yeah," Finn says, "but she's still cool." He reaches over, pets the kitten a couple times. Adam looks around resignedly, as if he's ready to toss the kitten out in the cold or something. "I think this one likes you," Finn continues quickly.

Adam looks back down at the kitten, almost nervously, before nodding slowly. "I guess Mama would like this one," he says, giving Finn a small smile. He holds the kitten tight in his hands and he looks the little guy right in the eyes and says, "Your name can be Cat."

-x-

Much to Adam's expressed chagrin, Rachel renames the cat Olive. There's no particular reason as to why Rachel names the cat that; she's just always liked the name and though she's keeping the sex of the baby a surprise, she's now convinced that she's having a boy – so why bother _saving_ the name?

Finn thinks this is kind of a risky idea because even if Rachel thinks she's having a boy, and usually for some strange reason Rachel's premonitions are pretty spot on, there's still a chance that she might have a girl. And like, Finn thinks that all hell might break loose if Rachel delivers a girl and then realizes that she wasted her all-time favorite girl name on a _cat_.

But, Rachel loves the kitten. She doesn't even mind the added stress that the fur ball adds to the family life, and it actually is something nice for her to focus on, other than the fact that she's not working, or has a small beach ball in her stomach or whatever.

It's a late Friday night and Olive has just gotten done destroying the bathroom's garbage can and is now tiredly lying on top of Rachel's stomach as she lies on the couch watching old reruns of Law & Order. Finn's sitting on the couch, too, Rachel's legs draped over his.

Rachel's eating a raspberry popsicle even though it's like fifteen degrees outside, and every so often, she grabs the shaker of sea salt off from the coffee table and pours a little bit more onto the popsicle. It's kind of one of the grossest combinations of food that Finn's ever seen, but Rachel insists that the sweet and salty thing is really doing it for her lately.

"Want a bite?" she asks teasingly, holding the popsicle in front of him, waving it at his face. "It's so good."

"No," Finn says quickly, looking at the popsicle with the granules of salt stuck to it before looking back over at the television. "No, I'm, uh, I'm good."

"You don't want to taste the food that your baby is craving?" Rachel asks again, licking the popsicle and letting out a soft noise of appreciation. "Gosh. Whoever said that carrying a baby is hard work was right. Because this tastes both absolutely revolting and absolutely delicious, all at the same time."

She smiles happily and licks up some more of the popsicle. After a moment, she pours some more sea salt onto it. Finn can't help himself, because he just – he has to know, okay, like what's going into Rachel's body and why exactly she's finding the taste of raspberries and salt so addicting.

He takes a small bite out of the popsicle and he immediately starts to pout because the taste is about as disgusting as he'd hoped it wouldn't be. Rachel giggles and holds her hand out underneath his mouth. Finn lets the bits of popsicle fall into her palm and Rachel quickly leans over to the coffee table, wipes her hand on a paper towel that she had lying there.

"And I could've sworn that you'd enjoy that," Rachel says, going back to her treat. "Adam didn't mind it all that much."

"You fed that to him?" Finn asks incredulously. Rachel shrugs carelessly.

"It's sugar free and only fifty calories. I was eating one when I picked him up from school today so of _course_ he wanted a bite." She licks a drip that was starting to form on one side of the popsicle. "He pretended to like it, but I think that was only so he wouldn't hurt my feelings." Rachel looks at Finn and makes a little pouty face. "Isn't he _adorable_?"

Finn laughs and reaches out to pet Olive. The little cat just blinks tiredly up at him, lets out a meow, and then goes right back to sleep. "Shouldn't we be at that stage now where we aren't finding like, every single thing Adam does as super cute? I feel like he's going to be all spoiled and stuff."

Finn shifts uncomfortably in his seat because even though Rachel insists that they're not spoiling Adam, sometimes he gets really nervous. Yeah, Adam's an awesome kid and all, but still. They've totally given in on the Elephant issue – Adam takes him to school every day still – and like, sometimes, if Adam doesn't want to eat his tomatoes or lima beans or whatever at dinner, Finn lets him just throw them out.

Throw them out. Not even _attempt_ to save them.

Rachel looks at him as if he has two heads. "He was polite about it and managed to finish his bite, unlike you," she says, and she stretches her arm out so she can poke Finn in the stomach. He dodges that quickly by leaning back in the couch cushions so that her arm can't really reach him unless he moves – and Rachel looks super comfortable right now, so there's pretty much no chance in hell that she's moving.

"I know, I know," Finn concedes. "It's just. I get nervous."

"It's because you're a good dad," Rachel says. She turns her head then, and looks towards the television.

She does that a lot now. She'll say things like, 'you're a good dad' or 'Adam's so lucky to have you' as if she's trying to ease Finn into the idea that he's not really just an uncle anymore – that he's Adam's dad.

And Finn appreciates what she's trying to do and everything. Rachel would never come right out and be like, 'you're Adam's father' because she knows how much that would upset him. Instead, she just casually mentions it and Finn thinks she does that with the hope that at some point, Finn will actually acknowledge the fact himself.

But Finn's. He's not really ready yet.

Olive lazily hops off the couch at just the right moment, as Finn slips his hand underneath Rachel's night shirt so that he can press his hand against her belly. She's about four and a half months now, and her stomach is growing a bit each day, but it blows his mind to think that there's actually a baby in there. Right now, it just looks like she had a big burrito for lunch or something.

Rachel looks at his hand that's spanning across her tummy and she smiles, shifts a little lower on the couch so that his hand slides up a bit.

"Crazy, right?" Rachel asks, and she bites off the rest of her popsicle, dropping the stick on the coffee table. She chews the ice slowly and then swallows, and says, "If you would've asked me two years ago, if I ever thought I'd be pregnant with your baby…" she trails off and shakes her head. "I think I would've laughed right in your face, honey."

Finn looks up at her, mildly offended, before he realizes that she was just sort of teasing him. But not totally teasing because like, yeah, two years ago this probably would've seemed completely insane. And maybe it still is sort of insane – you know, the nanny marrying the boss and everything.

"I'll just call you Fran Drescher," Finn says, in a moment of pure brilliance. Rachel giggles, and Finn loves the sound of her laugh – he'll always do anything, say anything, if he can just get her to laugh.

She covers his hand with hers, the hand that's resting on her stomach, and she bites her lip. "Can you feel that?" she asks, and she presses his hand closer to her stomach, if that's even possible. "The baby's moving. I can feel it." She sounds breathless.

Finn rubs his thumb against her belly and he lowers his hand a bit and – yeah. He can feel it. He feels a little flutter underneath her skin, a little poke, and God, that's his child. That's his baby in there.

He looks up at Rachel and he can't even fight the smile that's spreading across his face. He bites his bottom lip and he tries not to cry because he's not a total pussy or whatever. But this is just – it's so cool to feel the baby move.

"I wish we could wake Adam up so he could feel this," Finn says quietly, leaning forward and pressing a kiss against Rachel's stomach. He feels her fingertips curl around the outer lobe of his one ear, and she lets out a soft sigh. Finn just stares at her belly, the stretched skin, the soft fine hairs, and…

"I'm ready," Finn says, and he's not sure if he's talking to Rachel, to the baby, or to himself. But he continues out loud, "I'm ready to be a dad."

Not even a second passes by before Rachel says, "You already are." She smiles. "I saw you crying at Adam's Christmas Pageant last night, and don't try to act like you weren't."

-x-

You know, Adam's a pretty smart kid. He's only five years old but he's already able to read picture books really easily and he knows basic math, and he's always been great at writing his name. Sure, his hand eye coordination isn't that spectacular, but he's awesome with puzzles and even though he just started watching baseball with Finn last summer, he already knows most of the names of the Mets players. So, he's intelligent. And he gets most things.

Like, he knows that while Rachel's really peppy and happy in the morning, she gets tired at night, and now that she's pregnant, she gets even more tired even _more_ easily. And so even though Rachel's been the one giving him his baths since he was three years old, he's totally chill if Finn has to take over for a night or two, if Rachel's too tired to handle it. And he knows that when Aunt Santana starts murmuring things in Spanish, that means she's either super upset or super nervous, so he should probably stop talking and let her just do her thing.

Finn knows these things about Adam. He knows that he's an intelligent person. But like, even though Adam's smart intellectually and stuff, he's still five. And five year olds aren't so good sometimes at understanding emotional things, or relationships or whatever. They're not good at verbalizing certain things. So even though Finn doesn't really like having serious conversations with Adam, he knows that sometimes, he has to.

Because Adam's probably confused sometimes. It's understandable that he would be. The kid lives with his uncle and aunt – the aunt who used to be his nanny – and now he's calling his aunt 'Mama' and his uncle 'Finny' and his aunt's pregnant with a kid that he's calling his brother.

Finn just feels like maybe him and Adam need to touch base or something. Make sure that Adam understands everything that's going on. Finn talked to his mom and Burt about it, and they both cried, and Finn started crying a lot, too, because it's just a fucking emotional thing, but like. It's time.

If Adam wants to call Finn 'Dad'… Finn's not going to fight it anymore. He's not going to encourage it and he's never going to allow Adam to stop referring to Kurt as 'Daddy', because that's who Kurt is, was, and always will be. But Finn has to sort of stop being a baby and step up to the plate and realize that maybe Adam's wanted to call him Dad for a while, and Finn's just been too stupid and nervous to pick up on the cues.

So he takes Adam out to the park one day, and they sit on the bench of a while. There aren't any ducks in the pond, because it's super cold out and the ducks are probably all down in Florida enjoying life, but Adam still likes going to the park anyway because he figures that maybe a stray duck got left behind or something. Anyway, Finn figures this is as good a place as any to have a serious man-to-little man talk.

He pulls Adam's hat down lower on his ears, reties the strings underneath his chin. There's no snow, but there's a light frost covering all of the grass – Adam calls it crunchy snow and he dislikes it slightly less than regular snow.

"So," Finn says awkwardly, and he claps his gloved hands together because like, he knows what he wants to say but he still feels a bit stupid. He glances down at Adam, who's just staring up at him innocently. His pale cheeks are flushed red; he's wearing at least five layers of clothing right now, because Finn can't let him out of the house during the winter until Adam's looking like that one kid from A Christmas Story.

(Hypothermia's no joke, okay?)

Adam says, "Yes?" And Finn realizes that he's actually supposed to be the one carrying on and forming this conversation.

Finn clears his throat, claps his hands together again, and he says, "I know you're really excited about the baby."

Adam's eyes practically light up and he almost starts doing a little dance in his seat or something. "Are we going to buy presents for the baby today?" he asks, the excitement in his voice almost too much to handle. "Let's go buy her a whale!"

Finn doesn't ask if Adam actually wants to buy her a real whale or a stuffed whale – knowing him, honestly, it could be either – and instead says, "You know. That baby… that baby's going to be your baby brother or baby sister, right?"

Adam nods slowly, and looks at Finn as if he's the stupidest person on the face of the planet.

Finn swallows tightly and he looks down at his knees before looking back over at Adam. "Kind of like – kind of like how _your_ daddy was _my_ baby brother." Step-brother, but seriously, that's just semantics.

Adam nods again. Finn scratches the back of his neck and he shakes his head because this is so fucking stupid, he doesn't need to be having this conversation with Adam. If Adam wants to call him 'Dad' he will, just like Adam calls Rachel 'Mama', but -. But no, no, it's _not_ the same, because Adam never had a mama before Rachel, and God, he's only five years old so obviously at some point Finn's going to have to have a serious discussion with him about this kind of stuff…

But does it have to be right now?

Finn takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I just." He looks at Adam, who's still staring up at him all innocently. "You can – you can call me Finny, or Uncle Finn or. Or Dad. If you want. Because that's what the baby will be calling me, you know." He doesn't look at Adam, just looks at his shoes and wishes that the earth would swallow him whole or that Kurt would like, shoot out a lightning rod from the sky and spite him down to the depths of fucking hell.

Adam doesn't say anything, just scoops up some frost off from the bench and starts patting it in his hands, like he's making a mini-pancake or something. Sometimes when he's nervous he doesn't like to address the situation. He's a lot like Kurt in that aspect; letting Finn fill in the silences with awkward words and phrases.

"You don't have to," Finn says quickly, and he wraps an arm around Adam, trying to lighten up the conversation somewhat. "But it's just – if you want to, it's not like Daddy will be angry with you. Okay? I don't want you to think that you _can't_ call me Dad just because you're nervous about what Daddy would think."

Adam nods and he says, "Are you sure Daddy Kurt wouldn't get mad?"

Finn can't say definitively, because it's not like Kurt's right in front of him or anything. But he feels pretty confident when he tells Adam, "I'm sure Daddy would just want you to be happy."

-x-

So, Rachel makes the definitive decision around the sixth month of her pregnancy that she's going to just stay at home for the first two years of the baby's life, and then she'll try to make her return to the stage. It's the decision that Finn was expecting her to make (because he knows her, and sometimes he thinks that he maybe knows her better than she knows herself) but the decision he wasn't pushing her to make.

She seems set in her decision – she makes a bunch of pro/con lists and she talks to her dads on the phone almost every night for a week straight. And she talked to a bunch of her casting director friends and they all told her that they'd keep her in mind for workshops and stuff, and Rachel says that maybe when the baby's like a year old she can _slowly_ start easing her way back into the Broadway world.

Finn knows that Mercedes and Tina talked to her, too, about how great some companies are about helping find childcare situations, and how there are so many working moms now in the theater world. And Santana and Puck totally offer to help out with the kids whenever they can, so that Rachel doesn't feel as if she has to give up her career just to be a mother.

(Finn assures Santana that when she's thirty five and ready to start a family, he'll return the favor by helping out with her kids, and Santana practically smacks his face off because under _no circumstances_ is she ready to talk about being a mom yet.)

Also around six months, Rachel kind of like. Well. Explodes. Her belly used to be all tiny and stuff, but now it's just like there's a huge beach ball stuffed under her shirt, and Finn doesn't even know where all this weight came from or whatever. He knows it sounds really stupid but seriously, it's like he went to bed one night and then woke up the next night and Rachel's just _massively_ pregnant.

And she's so tiny and little that like, having all that extra weight on her isn't exactly pleasant for her. It's hard for her to walk around and chase after Adam, she's tired all the time, and the only thing she wants to eat is blueberries. That's fine, because Finn loves blueberries, but like – it's February, and blueberries are expensive and kind of difficult to find in February.

But Rachel wants blueberries. So Finn will find her blueberries because making Rachel cry is not something he wants to do, especially since she's so emotional right now. Like, she went to see her old Broadway show the other night (even though Finn told her not to, because he knew how she'd get) and even though she tried to hide it, she spent the majority of the show crying into her handkerchief.

Finn knows Rachel loves being a mom but he also knows she loves the stage and sometimes, even though he knows she doesn't feel bad for herself, _he_ feels kind of bad that she's so clearly torn between those sides of herself.

So if his girl wants blueberries, fuck it, he's going to get her blueberries.

"Couldn't she crave a hamburger?" Santana grumbles, as she and Finn trudge around the city on a late Wednesday night.

Santana came over because her and Finn were supposed to watch the Knicks-Cavaliers game on television (or, Finn was going to watch it and Santana was going to just drink a bunch of beers and then pass out on the couch) but then Rachel got this serious need for blueberries right after she'd tucked Adam into bed, so. Here they are, wandering the streets and trying to find some place that's open, which is easy enough, and that also sells fresh blueberries, which is a more difficult task.

"She's still trying to avoid as much meat as she can," Finn says.

"So we're supposed to forget the fact that we saw her inhaling a ten piece chicken nugget meal the other night?" Santana asks, looping her arm through his as they walk down the snowy street. Finn laughs.

"Something like that."

Santana rolls her eyes. "I swear to God, your girlfriend is crazy."

Finn shrugs and they walk for a few seconds in silence before Santana looks at him in that pensive way that she always does whenever she's about to say something to him that she thinks is going to freak him out.

"So, when are you going to lock up that whole situation?"

"Excuse me?"

"_Rachel_," Santana says, stressing her name. "When are you going to marry her?"

Finn glances at Santana and almost walks straight into a light pole. He straightens up quickly enough and Santana starts laughing hysterically. Finn pulls his arm away from hers, gives her a dirty look, and continues to walk in silence, because seriously, he could've really hurt himself or something and his best friend would've just been doubling over and laughing at him. Not funny.

"Finn," Santana calls to his back as he walks quickly ahead of her. "Finn, come on, you were walking at the pace of a snail, okay; it wouldn't have hurt that badly!"

He waves his hand carelessly at her, and he can hear her boots clicking loudly on the pavement as she jogs to catch up to him. He feels her looping her arm back through his, and she knocks her hip against him.

"Don't be such a baby," Santana says, rolling her eyes. "I didn't say anything super insane, you idiot. I'm just asking the question that everyone else is thinking."

"Everyone else?" Finn questions, because no, he doesn't really think that every single person in their lives is questioning about when him and Rachel are going to get married. Because they live together, and they're raising Adam, and they're having a baby together. You don't get much more committed than that.

"Not everyone," Santana relents, "but the people that matter, anyway."

"So, you mean _you_," Finn corrects, and Santana shrugs confidently.

"And Puck."

"Puck doesn't care about whether I marry Rachel or not," Finn says, rolling his eyes. "He just probably wants to know if there'll be a party afterwards that he can bartend at."

Santana says, "Okay, yeah, that might be true. But would it interest you to know that Rachel has also asked that question?"

Finn looks down at his best friend, who is currently staring at him with one of those looks that she has, that always means she's up to something or manipulating a situation. They've been best friends since high school, yet sometimes Finn still can't tell when Santana's playing a situation for her benefit or for someone else's.

But like, it _has_ to be for his benefit in this situation, because what, exactly would Santana get out of him marrying Rachel? Besides maybe free tickets to some Broadway shows or something, but that's dumb, because Rachel already offers those up all the time.

"Rachel wouldn't talk to you about that," Finn says hesitantly. Santana lets out one of the loudest, most un-ladylike snorts of all time, and she counters,

"Um, Rachel talks to everyone about everything. She started bawling to me on the phone the other day about what color she wanted to paint the baby's nursery, and then she made me listen to her sing for ten minutes, so that I could make sure her voice isn't losing its strength during her prolonged maternity leave," Santana says. She looks around the street for a second and frowns. "Honestly, can't we just buy her frozen blueberries and then like, put them in the microwave and unthaw them? Girl's so wound up right now she probably won't even notice."

"Yeah," Finn says, ignoring her comment about the frozen blueberries because he's not positive but he's pretty sure that wouldn't work – it'd just make them all mushy and gross – "but that doesn't mean that she's talked to you about like. A wedding or whatever."

He swallows thickly because like, _obviously_ he's thought about marrying Rachel but he's never thought about it in serious terms. He's always just thought of it in like, faraway, abstract terms – like the Cubs winning a World Series or the Dolphins managing to win more than eight games in a season.

"Finn, I just _told_ you she has. She's been pestering me for like two months about when you're going to pop the proverbial question or whatever." Santana rolls her eyes and says in a blasé sort of manner, "I told her you'd think about it in ten years' time and she just about had a conniption."

"You did _not_ tell her that," Finn says, and he can feel his breath starting to quicken and his palms starting to literally sweat because yeah, maybe he's too nervous to propose to Rachel right now but it's not like he's going to be nervous for the next ten years.

"I did, but I assured her after she started hyperventilating that I was joking," Santana says. And she looks up at Finn, a look of honest confusion written all over her face. "I don't get why you haven't asked her to marry you yet, though. I mean, back in high school you practically proposed to Quinn Fabray after two weeks of dating."

"Shut up," Finn mumbles, and he scratches at the back of his neck as he and Santana wander into a 24 hour market . There's a slim chance that there might be some form of blueberries in here, but Finn's not holding his breath. They head back to the produce section.

Finn sighs, and he says, "I don't know why I haven't proposed yet. I guess with Adam and everything… I don't know. The timing never seems to be right. And then Rachel got pregnant -."

"Rachel got pregnant?" Santana sharply interjects, and Finn quickly amends,

"_We_ got pregnant, and I dunno, I just thought that she'd want to be focusing on the baby and stuff and not planning a wedding."

Santana looks at him, and she says, her voice practically devoid of emotion, "Finn. _Finn_. This is Rachel _Berry_ we're talking about. Okay? And if there's one thing I've learned in the past two years about her, it's that the girl lives for multitasking. It's like she can't work properly unless she has twenty different things to be freaking the fuck out about."

Finn takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, as he scans the produce area because like, no, there definitely aren't blueberries here, just like he knew there wouldn't be. He glances over at Santana and she says,

"Look, the girl's been living with you for two years. She's helping you raise your nephew, she's pregnant with your baby, and while I know sometimes you're a bit slow on the uptake, I think you also know that it's about time that you grow some balls and just ask her to marry you."

Santana reaches behind some raspberries and she pulls out a carton of blueberries. Finn's jaw drops as she hands him the container and she continues, "And for the love of _God_, can you please get her to start craving something other than fucking blueberries?"

-x-

Every so often, Adam asks Finn to tell him the story about the day he was born. Finn's never been entirely sure as to why kids love to hear stories like that; it involves hospitals and blood and stuff, so it sort of seems like the thing that kids would like to avoid. But little kids are pretty egotistical (and that's not being mean, that's just the _truth_ – Finn read about it in this one parenting book) so any story that stars them as the main attraction has to be like a drug to them or something.

Anyway, this one random Saturday afternoon towards the beginning of March, Adam asks Finn to tell him about the day he was born. They're watching 101 Dalmatians, so Finn guesses that it makes sense that Adam would be asking this story now, because there's like a hundred puppies being born on the screen right in front of them.

Adam curls up next to him, and says, "And don't leave out _anything_." He says this very seriously so Finn decides that maybe he'll throw in a few more details this time – nothing disgusting, but, you know, just more details than Finn's given in the past.

So Finn says, "Okay, well, about seven years ago, your daddy decided that he wanted to have a baby."

"Me," Adam says proudly, puffing his chest out like he's a superhero or something. Finn nods, ruffles his hair a little.

"Yeah, dummy, you. But your daddy wasn't married to a mommy; so your daddy's friend helped him out a lot. Because only girls can carry babies, you know?" Finn asks, and Adam nods, and he grabs a couch pillow and tries to stick it underneath his shirt to pretend he's pregnant or something.

He then shrieks, "I need _blueberries_!" and bursts into high pitched, hyena like giggles. Finn rolls his eyes and grabs the pillow out from under Adam's shirt because seriously, if Rachel heard him doing something like that she'd probably start crying _immediately_.

"So, once Daddy realized that this friend would help him out, your daddy's friend carried you for nine whole months in her belly. And then Daddy called me, and Nana, and Papa, and said that you were ready to uh, you know, be born and stuff." Finn glances over at Adam, who's quieted down now and is just staring at him seriously. Finn continues, "So we got on a plane and flew right out to California. We waited with Daddy in the waiting room, and…" he trails off, laughs at the memory. "Your daddy must've lost like ten pounds in the waiting room because he was running around and doing jumping jacks and like, high kicks, because he was so nervous."

"Why was he nervous?" Adam asks, wrinkling up his nose.

"Because he wanted to make sure everything was okay with you," Finn says, shaking Adam's shoulder back and forth lightly, "just like how we'll be nervous when Mama gives birth."

Adam nods in understanding, and Finn takes a deep breath because he can feel that feeling in the back of his throat, that feeling of unshed tears and just – _emotions_, too many emotions trying to break their way through to the surface.

"And then after an hour or so, your daddy found out that you were born. And he went into the room, and he held you, and I have never, _ever_ seen him so happy in his entire life." Finn looks over at Adam, who's staring at him with an awed look on his face, because – again, star of his own story and all. But then Adam says,

"Daddy's probably super sad he's not here, huh?" Adam asks kind of quietly, pulling at a loose thread on the couch pillow.

"Nah," Finn says, and he wipes his hand underneath his nose. "No. Remember? Daddy's in heaven and everyone's happy there."

He forces himself to smile at Adam and Adam smiles at him back, but warily, like he's not so sure anymore that Finn's telling the truth.

Finn insists, "Seriously, Ad. Daddy's happy. I promise."

Adam's still at that age where adults never lie and promises last forever.

So he says, "Okay," and he gives Finn this relieved smile, like all of his worries have just dissipated or something. "I just get nervous," Adam says, "because we're having so much fun and I don't want Daddy Kurt to be sad that he's not here. Because I'd be sad, if I was gone and he was here."

Finn thinks about this for a moment, and he reaches over and he pulls Adam onto his lap. Adam sits there after a second, and out of nowhere, Olive hops onto the couch and settles herself down into Adam's lap. Adam smiles at the cat and pets her gently, just like how Rachel and Finn taught him to.

Finn kisses Adam's forehead and he says, his voice catching every so often, "Daddy's happy when you're happy. Okay? He might be bummed sometimes, but he knows that you're having such a great time and… he's happy. Trust me."

Adam pets Olive and he looks up at Finn. There are little tears dropping from his eyes and Finn thinks that this is the first time in over a year that Adam's _really_ cried about Kurt. For most of the past year, Adam's talked about Kurt as if he's just on an extended vacation or something. Finn knows that these tears probably mean that Adam's probably growing up, probably coming to the utterly terrifying realization that he really is never going to see Kurt again.

He hugs Adam tighter to his chest. Olive lets out an indignant meow but doesn't move off from Adam's lap.

"It's okay, bud," Finn whispers into Adam's hair, as Adam's shoulders shake and the tears continue to fall down his face. "It's okay."

Adam brushes his nose against Finn's shirt. "Don't leave me," he mumbles into Finn's shirt, and Finn can't even say anything, can't even find any words.

-x-

What with being massively pregnant and everything, Rachel kind of has a difficult time shaving her legs. She hates that, and she complained enough about it to Finn that he finally just threw in the towel and said that he would shave her damn legs himself. He's starting to think that was a horrible idea though because now they're both in the tub and he's trying his best but she keeps barking orders at him and it's _freaking him out_.

"You're going to cut my knee," Rachel moans, as Finn slowly shaves a strip up her calf. "You're going to cut my knee and then I'm going to have to go to the hospital."

Finn looks up at her, because seriously? When has she ever had to go to the hospital over a shaving incident? Rachel giggles and she leans her head back against the edge of the tub. Her hair's all pushed up into a messy ponytail and basically she's just a head, belly, and legs at this point. But honestly, she's still hot as hell, and Finn would probably think she was even hotter if she'd stop _yelling_ at him.

He gently shaves a little patch of her knee, and he bites at his bottom lip because he's kinda trying to concentrate here. He can tell that Rachel's holding her breath and it sort of annoys him because he really is trying to do a decent job.

He puts a little more shaving cream onto her knee, and Rachel lets out a yelp. "Not so much that you can't see my knee, Finn!" she insists, and she tries to reach with her arm to brush some of the shaving cream off, but because of the angle she's laying at she has a hard time actually reaching her knee over her stomach.

Finn laughs and Rachel gives him a death glare, before she pushes her hands into the sides of her stomach, wincing. "This is the last time I'm ever carrying your child, Finn Hudson," she hisses, her face scrunching up in pain. "He or she hasn't stopped kicking me all day."

He frowns and he leans forward, presses a kiss against Rachel's belly. In response, he gets a sharp jab at his mouth and he starts to laugh because he thinks maybe this baby is taking after Rachel in terms of attitude or whatever.

Rachel giggles and Finn looks down at her legs. He's actually doing a pretty good job; he even remembered to shave that patch of skin right next to her ankle.

"Maybe I should start some sort of business," he tells Rachel as he shaves another strip of her leg slowly. "Like a guy who goes over to pregnant women's houses and shaves their legs for them or something."

"Yeah, because that doesn't sound one hundred percent creepy or perverted," Rachel says teasingly. She picks her water glass up off from the edge of the tub and takes a few big sips. She places the glass back down and smiles at Finn, who's currently camped out between her legs, trying to get to her inner thigh.

He can feel her watching him as he shaves another patch of skin. It's making him nervous and stuff, because he knows that if he so much as nicks her a teensy bit she's going to scream bloody murder. And Adam just got to sleep so Finn really wouldn't appreciate having to get up and go read another five bedtime stories to him and Elephant.

He kisses her thigh, and he says, "It looks good." Rachel smiles tiredly at him and she reaches her hands up to pull her ponytail tighter, and Finn tries not to stare but like her boobs are _huge_ at this point and they're kind of just there – and he knows that he has to be gentle with her now and everything, but he can't help himself, he leans forward just a bit so he can kiss at the skin of her breasts.

"My legs," Rachel protests lightly. But she widens her leg slightly so that Finn can settle in between them more easily. He drops the razor over the side of the tub and he brings his hands so that he's cradling Rachel's tummy as he drags his tongue across a nipple. Rachel lets out a sigh and Finn looks up at her, smiling. But his smile falls from his face when he sees that Rachel is still wincing, her lips pursed and her eyes scrunched shut.

"Does it hurt?" he asks, looking down at her stomach then back up at her. She bites her lip nervously and nods slowly.

"I think I just need to lie down," she says, and Finn quickly pulls away from her and pulls the plug on the drain, standing up so that he can start to try to help her out of the tub. "The tub's hurting my back."

Finn leans down and Rachel grabs onto his arms as she tries to maneuver her way out of the tub. She almost slips a couple of times and like, Finn can see his baby's life flashing before his eyes or whatever, so he wraps an arm around Rachel's waist super tight so that there's no way in hell she can possibly fall down.

Rachel looks up at him with a grateful smile when she's safely out of the tub.

"I feel like Elephant," she mumbles as she grabs a towel off from the counter and awkwardly tries to wrap it around herself. "I can hardly move and…" she sighs in frustration when the towel won't fit around her hips and she lets it fall to the floor. "What's the point in even trying to be demure or conservative! You've already seen all of me, clearly! Might as well just walk around _naked_ for the rest of this pregnancy."

She stomps off into the bedroom and lies on the bed, her arms covering her face. Finn tries not to laugh because he knows that Rachel seriously wouldn't appreciate that right now; instead, he hangs the towel back up on the towel rack, and then heads into the bedroom as well.

He can tell that Rach is in a legitimately bad mood and not just a fake bad mood because usually she hates getting the sheets all wet after a shower or bath. But now she's just lying there and the water's soaking into the sheets and she doesn't look like she has one care in the entire world besides finding a way to get comfortable.

"I'm fat," she says, her voice muffled. Finn climbs onto the bed next to her, and he covers her lightly with a bed sheet, tucking her in.

"No, you're pregnant," he recites. She lifts her one arm up so that she can look at him. Pouting a little dramatically, she reaches out and grabs onto his arm, pulls him closer to her. Finn presses a kiss onto her shoulder, then pushes her hair out of her face so that he can drop a kiss onto her cheek. She smiles a little then, and she places her hands on her belly.

"Less than two months," she says wearily, massaging her fingertips into her stomach. "Less than two months." She says that sentence like it's some sort of mantra or something, words of wisdom to carry her through.

Finn leans down over her tummy and gently kisses it a couple of times before moving back up the bed so that his head is lying right beside Rachel's.

"Want anything to eat?" he asks, and Rachel thinks for a moment before slowly shaking her head.

"Surprisingly… I'm actually not hungry right now. I think I ate enough oatmeal cookies today to put Hostess to shame," Rachel says, giggling tiredly. "Your baby likes to _eat_, honey. I bet he's going to be so tall, just like you and Adam."

Finn laughs, presses a kiss against Rachel's nose. "Maybe." He's silent for a second and then he says, "Hey, Rach?"

She turns her head so that she's looking him straight in the eyes, brushes her bangs away from her face and smiles at him sleepily. "Yes?"

He grabs onto her hand that's closet to him, intertwines their fingers. He looks at their hands for a moment before looking back up at her. He smiles and says, "We should get married."

Finn's not entirely sure why he decided to bring up that idea now. But it's been building up inside him ever since he had that talk with Santana; this idea that he and Rachel should be married, should make their family official.

He wants that. He knows that he's ready to be a dad. He's pretty sure he's ready to be a husband, too.

Rachel's mouth drops open a little, and her hand goes slack in his. She nods slowly and then she's crying and she's kissing him and saying, "I can be a Hudson, too."

-x-

So, Rachel was right about the sex of the baby. On May 2, she does end up giving birth to a little boy. He's six pounds and seven ounces, and he's twenty inches long, so he's just this skinny string bean baby. Rachel sobs the minute she sees him, these huge, heaving sobs, and when Eli's placed on her chest for the first time; it kind of takes Finn's breath away.

Nana, Papa, and Grandpas One and Two all came up for the occasion, and they waited in the waiting room with Adam while his mama was giving birth. The minute that Finn got the okay from the doctor, though, he rushed back to the living room so that he could grab Adam and let him go check out his new baby brother.

"Is he really fat?" Adam asks, as him and Finn speed walk down the hallway. "Like a Cabbage Patch doll?"

"No," Finn laughs, ruffling Adam's hair. "No, he's super tiny. And skinny. And he cries all the time when Mama's not holding him."

"He's a mama's boy," Adam giggles, and Finn can't even help himself, he's just so fucking happy right now; he scoops Adam up in his arms and hugs him tight as he walks down the hallway towards Rachel's room.

"Just like you," Finn teases, kissing him on the cheek as they head into Rachel's room. She's lying on the bed and Eli's just chilling in her arms. He's so fucking tiny, and Finn whispers to Adam, "You were way bigger than Eli was when you were a baby. Daddy said you weighed over _eight_ pounds."

"That's because I'm the big brother," Adam says, as if that's the most obvious fact in the world. Finn just holds him in his arms for a second as he smiles at Rachel and the new baby, and then Adam starts squirming. "Dad, let me down," Adam says, frustrated. "I have to see Eli and Mama."

Rachel smiles at them and she says, "Yeah, Finn, let Ad come see his new baby brother."

So Finn places Adam on the ground, and Adam rushes over to the hospital bed. He leans over the railing of the bed, and he reaches a hand out to gently stroke the downy hair that's covering Eli's head. Just like Rachel and Finn told him, though, Adam makes sure not to get too close to the baby.

"Hi, Eli," Adam says, and this big smile breaks out across his face. "_Eli_. Eli, I'm Adam."

-x-

(Finn gets a nurse to take a family picture of him, Adam, Eli, and Rachel at the hospital. He gets the picture framed and he places it on the wall of the living room, right next to the family picture of the day that Adam was born. It's sort of like symmetry, you know? And the first night that Eli's brought home, and Finn goes to Adam's room to check on him late at night, Finn sees Adam murmuring to one of the pictures of Daddy Kurt - telling him all about his new baby brother.

"He's going to be tall, Daddy Kurt," Adam says, holding the picture frame tight in his hands. "Just like me, and you, and Dad.")

-x-

A/N2: I hope you enjoyed :) Let me know what you thought!


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